This development kit means we can expect a slew of new applications coming out soon, making it the perfect time to look back at the innovators who managed to create some unique hacks for the gaming hardware without any software support, aside from open-source drivers from other hackers.

Take a look below for Kinect-fueled UIs, music videos, remote-controlled helicopters and more, and let us know your favorites in the comments.

7 Mind-Blowing Xbox Kinect Hacks

1. Minority Report

Be honest: It’s the first thing you thought of when you heard about the Kinect. Well, it didn’t take researchers from MIT long to replicate Tom Cruise’s famous scene from Minority Report. After Kinect’s release, they put out a video mimicking the film, as well as the source code itself.

2. Gesture-Based World of Warcraft

If you thought creating a Twitter plugin for World of Warcraft was a marriage of two great technologies, then this is right up your alley. University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies created a toolkit for Windows that leverages Kinect’s sensors to allow for hands-free questing. This may result in an army of very fit gamers. That, or it could cut down the time players spend in the game.

3. Virtual “Hole in the Wall” Game Show

If you always wanted to appear on the Japanese-inspired game show “Hole in the Wall” and were crushed by its cancellation, there is still hope. Frog Design created a Kinect version of the game for the 2011 SXSW Interactive opening party. It’s almost exactly like the show, minus the bruises. They also deserve kudos for the 8-bit inspired interface.

4. Invisible Man Hack

Everyone has dreamt of invisibility at some point. This next hack gets pretty close by using the background image and overlaying it on a person. Maybe this won’t let you spy on real people, but you can use it to spy on video conferences.

5. Flying Kinect Robot

I assume the military has taken note of this next hack, in which MIT and UC Berkley researchers teamed up to create a quadrocopter capable of autonomous flight. It uses the Kinect to take note of its surroundings, including newly introduced obstacles, to navigate a preset path.

6. Kinect Helps the Blind

Here’s a hack that is both cool and practical. A team from the University of Konstanz in Germany paired the Kinect with a vibrating belt for tactile feedback, a laptop backpack for a brain and a Bluetooth earpiece for verbal instructions to create a tool that can help the blind navigate on their own. It even reads QR codes, which allows the setup to provide even more information to the wearer. Of all the hacks so far, this is the one that seems most ready for mass production. Sorry, World or Warcraft controller.

7. Kinect Recliner

This was actually one of Microsoft’s own hacks, which shows off what can be done with its developer tool kit. The planned release date is later this spring. Microsoft’s coding4fun.com team wheeled a Kinect-controlled recliner on stage during Wednesday’s Mix11 keynote.

Gestures not only control the omni-directional wheels but also the recline and horn functions.

Does it count as a hack if it was made by Microsoft to show off the new SDK? Not really, but it is still cool enough to make the list.

Disclosure: The author's company developed the graphics and XAML coding for the recliner app.

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